IV
Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring
property is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man
can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with
necessaries. And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the
workers must have their own proper instruments for the
accomplishment of their work, so it is in the management of a
household. Now instruments are of various sorts; some are living,
others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a ship has a lifeless, in
the look-out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the servant
is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an instrument
for maintaining life. And so, in the arrangement of the family, a
slave is a living possession, and property a number of such
instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which takes
precedence of all other instruments. For if every instrument could
accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others,
like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which,
says the poet,
of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods;
if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the
lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want
servants, nor masters slaves.
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